The news pieces have several factual mistakes connected to Migszol. We are not a registered organization, and nobody works for the group. Everyone is a volunteer, and nobody gets paid. We do not receive any funding. We don’t have registered members, and only Migszol can be asked that who is, or has been, our member and who not. Migszol has never been consulted about the person in the news, and none our members has ever worked with LMP or Bernadett Szél. The claim that Szél's advisor used to be an employee of Migszol is not only untrue, but impossible. We ask all the news outlets who have distributed this claim to correct it immediately and clarify that Szél's advisor has not been a member or employee of Migszol.

What was before a more or less, albeit poorly, functioning asylum system, has been turned into a carefully constructed, but unsustainable, system of detention and transit zones. Systematic pushbacks to Serbia, and more recently to Romania, continue. The fence area has developed into a militarized zone of pushbacks and detention. Following the format of our previous monthly updates,thisbriefpostoverlooksthemaindevelopmentsinHungaryin2017ontheground,whilethenextpostcomingupinafewdaystimelooksatpoliticaldevelopments. For legal developments and a monthly update on the asylum situation in Hungary, please see also the publications of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee.

Closure of camps and move towards detention

The government’s rhetoric on introducing systematic detention has been put into practice, on March 8th, when the law on detention for all asylum seekers was passed. This resulted in many people who were in the process and staying in open camps, to leave the country towards Western Europe. The date of the parliamentary vote was changed without further notice, which made protest very difficult. At the time, we published a detailed report on what asylum detention means. There are still open camps left in Hungary, for those who have (recognized) chronic medical conditions), who are in the last days of their pregnancy and who have been recognized as refugees.

A group of children raising slogans criticizing their "miserable" conditions at Tompa camp in Hungary.Photo by Haider Ali

The Hungarian version of this article was originally published on Kettős Mérce.​

​On 19 July, Momentum spokesperson Miklós Hajnal made it to the headlines when questioned on the topic of mass migration and people’s fears. He stated on Hír TV: “Concerning public safety, there is still a lot which is not right in this country … because we sent many people to the border [as guards], pulling them out from the cities and villages where they would otherwise work. Our position is that there is a need for the fence, but we need to be in solidarity with both the soldiers who work there and with the refugees who are there and are willing to go through the truly legal process (sic) that would allow them to acquire refugee status.”

There is still some time till the party’s promised official programme would be released in October, and while there is still heated internal debate on the matter, Migszol seizes the opportunity to formulate some suggestions and ask some questions to the party in the making.

This afternoon, the appeal court of Ahmad H. was held in Szeged. The prosecutor started the session by refusing even the necessity of having an appeal court, since in his opinion the right to a fair trial was respected in the first instance court. He added that there is no need of hearing new evidence or witnesses and asked to exclude some of the police reports to be considered. He wanted to classifyAhmed not as a person holding a permit to free movement, but as a third country national. He finally concluded that the second instance court should uphold the decision of the first instance court.

“The policemen were humiliating us and laughing at us . They were beating us and joking while doing it. They were saying: “Fuck you! Fuck muslims! Muslims are animals”. They put us all in a line and made us sit down. They were asking each of us where we were from. During this they were still hitting us. It didn't matter if you were in the beginning or in the middle of the line. Whenever they felt like hitting you they would hit you. If one of us was sitting in a different way or if the line wasn't straight they would drag them out of the line they would beat them and push them back saying: “Sit straight!”. In my whole life I've never been that scared. I've never been beaten this way and I've never seen anyone that was beaten this way.” /from a testimony collected by Fresh Response in North-Serbia/ full testimony: http://www.migszol.com/border-violence

Since the summer of 2016 reports about police brutality and human rights abuses done against people trying to cross the Serbian-Hungarian borders have dramatically increased. Characterically blunt, the government even officially called a special police unit deployed since February 2017 at the border with Serbia ‘border hunters’. In parallel with the establishment of the border hunter unit new laws were introduced, which enable the Hungarian police to push-back people from the whole territory of the country and thus make the abuses less visible.

The Hungarian government has passed an amendment in the national legislation on March 7th 2017. The content is a blatant attack on people who are seeking international protection. Several legal rights professionals have done a great job reacting to the content of the legislation, and explaining why it is in such striking contradiction with existing laws (the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, UNHCR, UNICEF, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch), so Migszol will in turn try to open up these obscure legal changes to reveal what it does to people on a very practical level.

In a nutshell, without a word of exaggeration: the law amendment changes an already ill-functioning national asylum system into a physically isolated, fenced off container camp area at the Southern border, and allows for the authorities to keep the rest of the country ‘clean’ of people seeking protection. The camp area will be a center for processing and managing its people regardless of who they are, where are they coming from, how old they are or what they need. The same in facts: the amendment legalizes detention for all asylum seekers, including children in families and unaccompanied minors over 14. The law will also allow for a ‘collection’ of asylum seekers from all around the country (more on that below). The timeframe for appealing a negative asylum decision is now shortened, from the already extremely short deadlines, to three calendar days, and asylum applications can now be rejected also based on “not cooperating” with the authorities, in which case the case will be closed and the person will be pushed to Serbia with no way to appeal the decision. In case of a negative decision, the asylum seeker should also pay for their own detention, such as accommodation and food, to the Hungarian state. The new amendment also makes it possible to apply for asylum only through the transit zones which is extremely problematic considering the fact that only five people per working day are allowed to access a transit zone from Serbia and waiting times are around one year at the moment.

A policeman patrols the area at Hungary-Serbia border fence near the village of Asotthalom, Hungary, on October 2, 2016. (Photo by Reuters)

Refugees imprisoned in Bekescsaba Asylum detention center are on a hunger strike. They are protesting the same treatment that is to be the fate of all asylum seekers from now on, according to the restricted asylum law passed only a few days ago by the Hungarian Parliament.

They are refugees, who flew from war for safety, but instead found imprisonment without information in Hungary. Read their original call for support:

A distress call to all human rights organizations in the world we are refugees in prison

BMH MOBK5600

BEKESCSABAUT 10 KETEGYHAZI.HUNGARYNamed (Closed camp)

I am Zanyar Faraj delegate all refugees I send my voice to the press, psychologists and human rights worldwide. I have spoken with all Refugees who are here in order to reach officials. there are important points will talk about it, please read this report very well

1- We are refugees, not criminals, we ran away from our country because of war and death, but were surprised that the closed camp and we have been here for six months ago and do not know our destiny

2- If the Hungarian government does not want refugees Why arrest them and force them to imprint asylum and leave them in prison

3- Most of the refugees are suffering from the disease and some need surgery and psychological condition is very bad and some of them thought to commit suicide because of the bad situation in this closed camp and doctors in this Camp know it, but they are content to give them sleeping pills

4- Because of this ill-treatment of refugees it will generate a state of violence and neurological diseases and This pressure will be born Rose bad feedback .that affect their lives in the future

5- We do not like war, not love problems love peace and human rights have fled from our country because of the war and came to your country, but this government Hingaria put humanity under the feet and the psychological war against Refugees

6- We ran away to your country in order to get the safety and stability. But the Hungarian government has put us in prison without guilt, and you are giving decisions do not benefit from them something

7- Finally this sit-in as refugees we want to send our voice and our call to all the world to liberate us from this injustice

Picture: Márk Zoltán Kékesi (constructions of the new detention containers at the border)

We are here today as Migszol, the Migrant Solidarity Group of Hungary. We are a political activist group of migrants, refugees, and Hungarians fighting for the rights of people impacted by the border regimes of Europe and Hungary.

As Migszol we came to say that we are standing in solidarity with the women’s strike and feminist struggles. And we came to say that feminism is essential for anti-racist and migrant solidarity work. We gather our strength from the teachings of anti-racist and anti-capitalist feminism that shows the urgency of cross-border solidarity.

This is a strike, a strike for reproductive rights, a strike for economic self-determination and a strike against violence. It is migrant and refugee women who are especially affected by these points of oppression.

Yesterday a law was passed that means that all people seeking asylum will be detained in containers at the border. Everyday people trying to cross to Hungary get beaten up by the police at the border. Additionally to this violence, women face very high risk of sexual violence and human trafficking on their travel routes, stuck at borders and in overcrowded camps and detention. We demand to stop the violence against all women!

Refugee and migrant women do not get any support by the Hungarian government to be able to find work, if so they are often stuck in very bad working conditions. Legal status determines the access to health care, including birth control. After people get a refugee status in Hungary, they do not get support with housing and after half a year lose their health insurance. On a European level, difficulties are similar for Hungarian women migrants working in Western European countries, who are often forced to work in precarious and underpaid works, regularly unreported. It often unables having access to health-care and to safe housing. The lack of support puts refugee women in Hungary, but also Hungarian migrant women in Western countries in very high risk. We demand reproductive rights and economic self-determination for all women!

The country as well as the rest of Europe and the West is swamped with racist propaganda about migration and moral panic created about ‘white women’s security’ is used as justification for racist politics. This is not the feminism we want. We must think our struggles together. In Hungary, it is the same government that places women, Roma, refugees, people of color, homeless people, LGBTQI and poor people at the margins of society. Globally it is capitalism, patriarchy and racism that produce the threats to so many people’s lives. ​We are happy to be here and we are united in our rage. Our feminism is anti-racist and our migrant solidarity is feminist! Our struggles are shared struggles.

On Thursday’s press conference, the Minister of the Prime Minister’s office János Lázár underlined Hungary needs to urgently “reintroduce detention to migrants”. Unfortunately János mixed facts quite severely in his statement, so we felt we have to help him out a bit. We are not surprised, of course, that the Hungarian government does not know its own asylum legislation, given the speed with which many aspects of it were changed in 2016, and given their total ignorance of international legislation. The core of the detention legislation, however, dates back to 2013, so János should know better. Therefore we wrote him the open letter below.

***Dear János,

You stated that the Hungarian government has to reintroduce the detention of migrants to guarantee security. It is quite clear for us that your statement is a populist reach for voters among the far right, because Hungary has had a detention system in place for the last three years. Consequently, there’s no need to reintroduce it. What you suggested as a new policy is not “detention of migrants” but jailing everybody who applies for asylum. That’s very problematic for many reasons, but as you seem not to be totally aware of the system as it is now, we will begin today by sharing with you some basic facts about detention and reception in Hungary.

The border policy of the Hungarian government has been successful in closing the border to most people seeking international protection. As a result, refugee camps and detention centers in Hungary are relatively empty and the media frenzy has subsided. The report of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, however, shows that the number of people stopped from entering the country in irregular ways has increased since the beginning of the year. At the same time, the number of asylum requests has shrunk significantly since July when the 8 km law was introduced. This, of course, has consequences for activists and volunteers, who now operate in an environment where it is increasingly difficult to have direct contact with people seeking protection. This increases the vulnerability of people, because there is less information on which activists and volunteers can act. First and foremost, however, this has consequences in Serbia, where more and more people are getting stranded.

November was cold, as also December is threatening to be. This is particularly taxing for those who are on the move, who are without shelter and who are not provided adequately by the responsible authorities, the states. We are thinking in particular of the approximately 6500 people (including the 1000 sleeping outside in Belgrade) who are stuck in Serbia, hoping to make it across the Hungarian border. We are thinking about the people who were transferred from the functioning refugee camp in Bicske to the Körmend tent camp, and the Kiskunhalas camp containers. We are thinking of those who wait in makeshift tents by the transit zones on the Serbian-Hungarian border to be let in. The Hungarian government has further diminished the number of people allowed in per day.​With regards to asylum-matters in Hungary, November had been no less eventful than the previous months. Ahmed H. received the first verdict in his case, Migszol organized several flashmobs and demonstrations. The transit zones reduced the number of people let through in a day, police pushbacks continue along the border including some extremely violent ones and the mayor of Ásotthalom is still kicking. Finally, if you want to see the faces behind these updates, take a look also at the pictures from the 4th birthday of Migszol.